Talking “Mad Men” with Matthew Weiner

After Saturday’s panel discussion on advertising, at City Winery, I caught up with one of the participants, Matthew Weiner, the creator and writer of AMC’s critically acclaimed drama “Mad Men.” Our conversation ranged from pantyhose runs caused by nineteen-sixties-era cane subway seats to “2001: A Space Odyssey.” A lightly edited transcript appears below.

Since we’re in New York, I wanted to ask about the role the city plays in the show. Although it’s a very New York-centric show, I’ve noticed that every time the characters leave town they seem to feel less oppressed or less constrained somehow.

I love New York and, like the rest of the United States, ninety per cent of my experience is derived from what happens here. And especially in 1960, it wasn’t just the center of the U.S., it was the center of the world. For production, for manufacturing, art, publishing, every business. This was the center for the world. And I think that it’s a real democracy, because although people live at different stations, especially in Manhattan, no one can really have a backyard, and everybody has to go into the street. It’s a character in the show because its decline coincided with the experience of America at that time. Things start here and they end here and the end starts here. I don’t know if they seem less oppressed—to me that’s more about going away from home, about what happens out of town. The variety of human beings in this city, and the amount of Nobel prizes that came out of twelve blocks on the bottom of the island—it’s just a fascinating place. That’s the role it plays in the show.

Speaking of the democracy of New York, perhaps the greatest democratizer in this city is the subway. Everyone takes the subway. You’ve got billionaires taking the subway—well, millionaires—along with everyone else.

Some people used to own their own subways. That’s gone.

And one of those really amazing historical details from the show that really stuck with me is—

The pantyhose.

Yes!

I got that from “Manhattan When I Was Young,” by Mary Cantwell. It’s a great memoir about being a single mother, and living in the Village. I saw that in the book, and then I started getting it anecdotally from other people. I have become a repository for people’s recollections. They tell me a lot more graphic and disturbing stories than that. And personal stories, which is a great gift to me.

Along those lines, you must do a tremendous amount of research to write the show.

And I have people who do research for me.

Can you talk generally about what that research is like? Is it mostly books? Is it mostly talking to people?

It’s everything. I’m a sponge and I always have been. I really try to get myself into the mindset of a human being. The thing that’s been historically interesting about it is the fact that we are all existing at the same time, and that you can look around the room and see clothing and furniture and all these different objects and people who are from different eras. That acceptance of everything existing at once is not usually appreciated in a period piece. They just want to wow you with the period, and everything’s from that day. You look at “2001” and still see the guys on TV in their neckties while everyone else is in their spacesuits. The human experience doesn’t change, and that’s a great way to keep it solid.

You’ve got to be careful about using popular media, which is what people usually use, because it’s usually either very behind or very ahead. A Hollywood movie from 1960 is full of design that hasn’t reached the public yet. Part of it is, we always look smart because we know the ending. You have to be careful not to get too snotty about it. I always liken it to “Titanic.” It’s a great story, but everyone knows the ending, and it still was, like, the most popular movie ever.

I know everyone’s been asking you about the Kennedy assassination. That’s something you’re going to have to deal with on the show.

Or not.

Right, but it’s out there in the ether.

Sure. It’s ironic for me because the first season of the show no one was paying attention to anything. This period had been forgotten. All these viewers were on the edge of their seat to see who was going to win the 1960 election. They didn’t remember. If the Kennedy assassination hadn’t happened, the Cuban missile crisis would’ve been considered the start of the sixties. I try to deal with the history in a realistic way and say, how do human beings experience history? That’s all I can say. We lived through 9/11—that’s my reference point. I look at that and say, Well how did we really experience that? How long did it take for us to understand what that is? How has it been reinterpreted? What is the meaning that’s been given to it? How has it been commercialized? How has it been exploited? What’s the insecurity created by it? Those are the things that I’m interested in. People may know the events but they don’t know how the people are going to react to it. That’s the drama. I like that they know the events now. It’s kind of easier to talk to them. And their intimate relationship with the show is very exciting to me. They’re worried, because they identify with the people, even if they feel superior.

One of our writers, Tad Friend, has just published a memoir called “Cheerful Money” that’s about the Wasp decline. He dates the decline of the Wasp to 1965.

That’s the year I was born! One of the things about that creative revolution (in advertising) that everyone talks about, and those Volkswagon ads, was the inclusion of – whether it’s humor, or whatever—of a subversive element into the concept of advertising. Jews and blacks and Italians were starting to be included in the creative process because that concept of who we were changed, and that idealized Wasp family. But still, the blond model—there are aspirations. We have our royalty. We have our thing to aspire to. And there is still a reality that you must become a Wasp to succeed in this country. We deal with it all the time in this multicultural society. With people talking about Obama not being black enough, or being too white. Whatever it is, it’s always being measured against that. I don’t think it’ll ever disappear. Because that’s still the public face of this country, even though it doesn’t reflect at all what the content is. Our aspirations are still connected to that person. A new essay in the Atlantic refers to “Mad Men” as a “megamovie—a genre whose leisurely pace allows for an almost novelistic vividness and accretion of detail.”

Well, there are references to books, there are references to movies, there are references to culture. But these things about genre are always puzzling to me. On some level I kind of take exception to that because it’s all a derision of television. It’s basically saying, It’s not stupid TV It’s like a movie, which are great! Or it’s like a book, which are valuable! And I say, it is what it is. It’s a mixture of those things. Television is a mixture of theater, which is dialogue-driven, and cinema, which is image-driven, and the novel part of it is that I’m telling a story that you may not know the ending to. The details are there for a reason, they’re not just there to support the story. Sometimes they’re digressions, but they’re part of the whole experience. So I think it is very much television, and it’s very much part of the kind of television that was created by David Chase [with “The Sopranos”], and that existed before that in the form of a miniseries. A continuous story, where each chapter has a thematic unity to it. It will emerge, I think, as its own defined genre, as a kind of television. It’s something that shouldn’t be undermined by being compared to what are considered to be greater arts. Television’s always going to be seen that way because it’s popular.

And here we are, back at democracy!

Exactly!

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